When Rep. Ken Lucas (D) announced his retirement from Congress, national Republicans quickly targeted the 4th district seat as one of their prime pickup opportunities. While Democrats went for the star power of Cincinnati newsman Nick Clooney — and his actor son George, who helped tap Hollywood for fundraising dollars — the increasingly Republican makeup of the district helped carry Davis to victory in one of the most hotly contested and hard-to-read races of the cycle. Davis’ 31,000-vote victory margin was larger than most pundits had anticipated. He had finished 6,600 votes behind Lucas.

That second visit was a bit more complicated. Along with an oil and filter change and replacement of the interior air filters, a laundry list of inspections is undertaken—everything from the airbags to the rear axle gets a going-over. At that point, our 540 was roaring efficiently and powerfully across the landscape, true to its Ultimate Driving Machine reputation, but a few niggling problems had arisen. From time to time, the trunk release would decline to work, and natch, when we showed up at the dealer’s for that second stop, it worked just fine—only now the left-rear window refused to go down. Seems the module that tells the window when to work had malfunctioned, causing the window motor and regulator to fail. The $650 replacement of the module, regulator, and window motor was covered under the four-year/50,000-mile warranty. The rest of that routine service put a $444 hole in our pocket, although it did include a set of new wiper blades for $20.